A process technology plant, which for example is utilized in power plants, is generally automated from a network of many control and regulation systems. These systems are assigned to individual plant areas. Despite this structuring into individual automation areas, it is never possible to prevent mutual influence. The failure of an individual automation system can result in failure of the entire plant.
As well as the failures caused by hardware faults, which, for example, can largely be prevented by appropriate redundancy, online program changes can likewise bring about the overloading of automation systems.